Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
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God of Nothing
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2016
i didn't even know niggers played D&D
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
They don't, but there is always a lot of good shit to steal at Cons. The blacks needed a room to stash shit until they can take it to the pawn shop.
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2017
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
The best part of this is that Gencon draws in retards of all makes and models, it adds a special layer of fun when I decide to go. This year there are going to be the retards isolating themselves and pointing out exactly why they're black or whatever as well as retards trying to get in there. Might have to go this year and find a bench across the entrance to sit down at when I get tired. Might take bets with my friends on how long it takes before I spot an invader.
Kyria the Great
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2017
I don't know why we can't turn back the clock when the worst thing that dealing with tabletop was cringe, magical realmers, and people who the idea of personal hygiene was a foreign concept. Can we just rid of the theater kids whose infested tabletop to turn it into the cringely LARP that culture in the 80s and 90s wrongly associated it with?
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2021
If only I could see this everywhere...oh well.
You know, I happen to be a former theater kid myself. Provided I can quisling and keep my based pass, I'll help man the flamethrowers.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2019
Question from someone who likes TTRPGs and runs them for friends but isn't really part of the culture: What is the market like if someone were to hypothetically have written a pretty good fantasy rules system - about 7/10 on the complexity system but elegant and a lot of thought gone into balance - and in tone sort of mid-fantasy. Not quite Warhammer lethality and bittiness, not so abstract as D&D pampering and abstraction. An optional default setting but needing fleshing out for those aspects.
If such a system existed and the creator was willing to put in a little money to market it / get some basic art, could it sell? Or is the market saturated beyond all hope?
Assume the game is not Woke nor pushes any politics! Just fun gritty-heroic fantasy.
If such a system existed and the creator was willing to put in a little money to market it / get some basic art, could it sell? Or is the market saturated beyond all hope?
Assume the game is not Woke nor pushes any politics! Just fun gritty-heroic fantasy.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2018
Honestly it sounds like you're describing Advanced D&D, the old one, I used to play back in the day. So I would say it had some legs, but that's just one old man's opinion.
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2021
You can try, but the market isn't just saturated, it's also niche. Throw a stone in a crowded area, and you'll likely hit someone who's heard of D&D but has no further knowledge of RPGs. The constant failure of lefty "passion projects" makes that pretty clear. Anna Krieder can't even GIVE away copies of Our Traveling Home, iHunt was such a hilarious failure not even most tabletop nerds know about it, and TSR Part 2: Electric Boogaloo can't get any traction with their products through a combination of cancel culture and apathy. I highly doubt another passion project from some no-name (no offense) will get much traction, honestly, especially since it seems like another European fantasy setting. Shadowrun and Cyberpunk stick around because they have a unique setting and unique mechanics, GURPs is great for autists, Pathfinder got big because they gave D&D speds what they actually wanted out of 4E, and Star Wars RPG sticks around because of Star Wars, Paranoia flips TTRPG formulas on its head and is just hilarious fun, FATE sticks around because talentless hacks won't let it die and keep using it for their bullshit "games", and anything smaller than that usually has a company behind it that made it big with something else.
TL;DR: It seems to me that you're another guy with a D&D Killer #3,712,910 idea, and like all previous ones it will likely go nowhere outside your friend group. Not trying to be harsh, but unless your game does something truly innovative, it'll almost certainly not sell well.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
It's a very long shot that you'll make any money at it but if you feel like writing a game system you should go for it. A friend of mine wrote a game based off of 3e shadow run and although he didn't become rich over night he ran a lot of fun games while testing it out and ended up finishing something. Was happy he did it but says "genesys did what I did but way better". Runs a fantastic genesys game btw.
One thing that you could do is run your games at conventions. I really like finding new rpgs someone has designed and signing up for a session because they charge less and sometimes it's a glorious train wreck which is a lot of fun too.
So go for it, write some cool shit and have fun doing it. Don't quit your day job.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
The market is rather small and saturated. Game nerds are always up for new games but you need to bring something new to the table(top).
The biggest problem I have seen is trying to get enough market penetration people can find games.
The two biggest "successes" have been Dungeon World/Apocalypse World/PbtA and... OSR as a whole.
PbtA works because it a stupid game for stupid people.
Allow me to expand on that. PbtA is a storygame with dice rolls so people don't feel like they are just playing pretend. The average PbtA module has almost no replay or continued play value because the "classes" involved are made around being archetypes in a story with little or no progression mechanics. So the game is stupid.
Because the only dice used are 2d6 and its made on a success range, and what you are able to do is limited to a series of categoried "moves" with little or no variation, you get one sheet of paper with all of the half dozen things your character can do. So you narrate what you do, fittiing it into your box, then roll and the DM says how it turned out. This requires very little brainpower, you can play it drunk or high. Its a game for stupid people.
So it fits the need for Theater MAjors to feel like they're playing a real RPG with dice rolls, but it is actually a story game that really just does whatever it is they want to do.
(i.e. Paranoia is also a stupid game for Stupid People, but it embraces that)
you also have games like Mothership, which has gotten some solid buzz, is opening up a new market segment because there isn't a lot of Sci-fi Horror games. The fact the buzz has sort of died a bit.... well, there's a reason there aren't a lot of Sci-Fi horror games because the atomosphere is really hard to get right. When the guys who made it run it, or some of their chosen acolytes, it is supposed to be pretty fun because the GM knows how to build the right world. Put it in the hands of your average 5e GM and it falls apart.
OSR clones work because they are compatible with 30-some years of official D&D modules until they stopped supporting B/X after 3.0, and the never-stopped line of 3rd party modules. In most cases they aren't making radical rule changes either, so anyone who's played a D&D edition has the right lexicon of terms and knows how to roll a D20. Anyone who HASN'T played a D&D ediiton before or a GM introducing new players has 40 decades of "New Player, what dis?" guides to pick from.
Another thing to consider is what "success" looks like. OSE has done pretty well for itself. But an OSE kickstarter, before expenses, pulls in below $300,000. OSE is one of the bigger OSRs, and its hard to find games and players. PbtA has a ton of clones, but you mostly only see those being thrown into HumbleBundles for tax write offs.
I'd just point out the usual flow of success:
I cant' think of anyone who came to the system design and was successful. Even Gygax. They start by doing scenarios/modules and modifications for the current hotness (Chainmail in Gygax's case. Chainmail its self is based on Seige of Bodenburg, which is based on Tactics II, which is the 2nd edition of tactics, which might go all the way back to Little Wars). The module builds a following, and then they make their actual game.
As @Mr. Manchester says correctly: if you want market penetration you'll need to do the convention circuit to push the game.
Also don't let the low odds of even marginal success discourage you from doing something you love, just understand you are not going to get rich doing it.
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Bionicle of War
kiwifarms.net
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- Aug 23, 2019
Are there any tabletop games that work with real-world history or close facsimiles thereof instead of just being bullshit superheroes with a medieval veneer like 5e?
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- Nov 4, 2017
If you mean a D&D like RPG, not really.
If you mean any physical boardgame, there's a lot of spergy wargames.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
Not really, because most characters wouldn't survive two sessions in a game like that. Lethality was very high in the actual medieval period.
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- Sep 3, 2014
A friend of mine is doing the exact same thing and is getting pretty stuck into it, and I've thought and did some initial work for my own game whenever my muse strikes me.
I say let them go for it, but don't expect to make it into a job or for it to do well. Small industry, small returns for a new IP and all that. I've seen over a dozen games I genuinely don't understand why so few people play despite their mechanics and setting being very well tuned, since the market for those is small.
Even with bigger companies they struggle to get customers for some lines. So you have to expect to eat shit and be happy if you don't.
The Seaman
kiwifarms.net
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- May 14, 2021
How would one go as to build a classic doom guy in pathfinder 2e?
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- Nov 4, 2017
I was going to try to post a lengthy list of a bunch of pointless instructions and end it with 'that was pointless but more fun than trying to build doom guy in PF' but I'm too lazy to do that. So instead I'll just ask
Why would you want to?